Long-range plan important for road projects

Long-range plan important for road projects

We all stand to gain from having a five-year federal transportation plan in place.

By “we,” that’s anyone who drives on state and federal highways, rides public transportation, crosses the Mississippi River on one of our area bridges, bikes or walks on a recreational trail, uses passenger rail service or wonders just how much more truck traffic roads can bear.

Area planners are heralding last week’s signing of a multiyear program both for the potential it means for funding parts of the Interstate 74 corridor expansion as well as the ability to continue to look ahead at future needs for the Quad-City region.

And by future, transportation planners mean far into the future.

“We are required to think at least 30 years in advance for long-range plans,” said Denise Bulat, executive director of the Bi-State Regional Commission, the area’s metropolitan planning organization.

The new transportation law, which authorizes $305 billion in spending, is the first time since 2005 that Congress passed a plan that went for more than two years.

Two years is a drop in the bucket for a project of the size and scope of building a new I-74 bridge and making significant improvements to the corridor on both sides of the river.

For those who lament that the beginning of construction on the new bridge itself is still two years away, consider this: The first comprehensive study of a new I-74 bridge was completed in 1998, with conversations between transportation officials in Iowa and Illinois starting years before that.

The transformation in downtown Bettendorf as buildings have been demolished and Grant Street is reconfigured is the result of years of planning, right-of-way acquisition, environmental studies and budgeting the federal, state and local dollars necessary to support the largest public works project in Quad-Cities history. Many motorists may not realize that the massive overhaul to the I-74/53rd Street interchange in Davenport is part of the total I-74 corridor improvement.

That’s why a multiyear plan is so important.

Stuart Anderson, director of the planning, programming and modal division at the Iowa Department of Transportation, told reporter Ed Tibbetts that the five-year bill “provides us with the certainty and makes us comfortable moving forward.”

Funding for parts of the corridor improvement are still needed, and officials are hopeful a new competitive grant program authorized by the five-year plan that is targeting nationally significant freight and highway projects could assist with that.

As concerns grow about the state of infrastructure throughout the country, a multiyear transportation plan at the federal level gives at least some measure of stability to the important planning that must go on to ensure a smooth, efficient and safe transportation system.

The Quad City Times. Dec. 12